Monday, May 17, 2010

Iraq Forces: Al-Qaida Plot on World Cup Uncovered

Iraqi security forces have detained an al-Qaida militant suspected of planning an attack targeting the World Cup in South Africa next month, an official said Monday.

Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, a spokesman for Baghdad security services, said Abdullah Azam Saleh al-Qahtani was an officer in the Saudi army. He is suspected of planning a "terrorist act" in South Africa during the World Cup beginning June 11, al-Moussawi told a news conference in Baghdad.

He said al-Qahtani entered Iraq in 2004 and is suspected in several attacks in the capital and elsewhere in the country.

In South Africa, a police spokesman said Iraq has not notified them of the arrest.

"We have not received any official reports from them," Vish Naidoo told The Associated Press. "Whatever arrest they made there, they know, we don't know anything about it."

The arrest of Saudi army officer in Iraq on Monday in connection with an alleged al-Qaeda terror plot to disrupt the FIFA World Cup in South Africa follows a warning by a an expert South Africa last week that al-Qaeda was targeting the football tournament. Professor Hussein Solomon, head of the International Institute for Islamic Studies at Pretoria University, told The Citizen newspaper in Johannesburg on May 13 that he believed Al Qaeda had every intention of committing wholesale slaughter during the World Cup. He said al-Qaeda suspects in many parts of the world had been found to have South African passports.